1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an advanced telecom computing architecture (ATCA) system, and more particularly, to an apparatus for providing a shelf manager having a duplicated Ethernet structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
The communication equipment industry has been seriously damaged due to the Internet Bubble collapse of early 2000. Manufacturers of communication equipment lost between millions and billions of dollars as a result of the market and several hundred thousands of employees lost their jobs due to downsizing. The manufacturers generally designed their own semiconductor devices exclusively for their products, and the manufacturers produced hardware, operating systems and applications according to the specially designed semiconductor devices. Such products were provided to communication service providers. Since the manufactures were damaged seriously, they had to find alternatives for manufacturing communication equipments.
The communication service providers generally design and manufacture their own network equipment to provide corresponding services. Such a way of producing network equipment is used to restrict competitors from entering the same market and also to maintain high service cost by limiting the compatibility of the network equipment. However, it is difficult for the communication service provider to manage various types of network equipment, although the cost of the initial installation of network can be reduced by competitive bidding.
In order to overcome such difficulties, many communication service providers introduced standardization of network equipment to increase the compatibility. For example, more than 40 world-wide companies have participated to standardize network equipment and an advanced telecom computing architecture (ATCA) platform was introduced accordingly.
The ATCA platform was designed of a reusable case, boards, switches, a central processing unit (CPU) and programmable network processors. The structure of the ATCA platform enables manufacturers of network equipment to produce network equipment according to the related standards thereof.
The ATCA platform enables the design of a network system according to the specifications of the PCI industrial computer manufacturers group (PICMG) standard. Therefore, the time of developing a network system is decreased and the economical efficiency increases.
The ATCA provides compatibility among different system manufacturers or various modules having different functions by defining an open standard hardware platform. Accordingly, the communication equipment manufacturers can concentrate on developing a target dedicated functional module, since the communication equipment manufactures are not required to develop all other functional parts of the communication equipment. Therefore, the development time of communication equipment is reduced, and the stability and the reliability of dedicated functional modules are secured. Furthermore, the development period of an entire communication system and the cost of developing the communication system are also reduced.
Furthermore, the ATCA allows the communication service provider to build a communication system using functional modules manufactured from different manufacturers. Therefore, the dependency on a manufacturer to manage an entire communication system is reduced, and the communication system can be constantly upgraded and managed efficiently using the standardized single platform for communication equipment.
Due to various advantages of the ATCA, the ATCA has been spotlighted as the major standard for communication systems, and more than 100 major communication system manufacturers and PICMG recently introduced PICMG 2.x ATCA specifications. The PICMG 2.x ATCA specifications were commonly used by many communication equipment manufacturers and communication service providers to develop their communication equipment.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a structure of managing systems based on ATCA according to the related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, the ATCA based system management structure includes a plurality of ATCA boards 102 capable of transmitting data based on Internet protocol (IP), a power input module 107 for supplying power to the entire ATCA system, a fan tray 106 connected to the power input module 107 to drive a fan, duplicate shelf managers 101 for managing and controlling the plurality of ATCA boards 102, and intelligent protocol management controllers (IPMC) for connecting the shelf managers 101, the plurality of ATCA boards 102 and the fan tray 106.
The plurality of ATCA boards 102 and the fan tray 106 must include an intelligent protocol management controller 103 (IPMC) for controlling predetermined functions, power supply for a board, a sensor and a port connected to a back plane. The duplicated shelf managers 101 manage and control the plurality of ATCA boards 102 through the IPMCs 103 connected to an IPMB bus 104.
The ATCA system essentially supports a hardware management function based on the intelligent platform management interface (IPMI). A shelf-external system manager 105 provides a hardware managing function of the system to a manager and is accessed through an external network using a simple network management protocol (SNMP), an IPMI over RMCP (Remote Mail Checking Protocol), a command line interface (CLI) and a Web interface, which are supported by the shelf manager 101.
The current ATCA specification mostly defines functions of hardware and shelf manager 101 and generally defines various data backplane structures according to the structure of a switch slot, such as a pull mesh or a dual-star.
FIG. 2 is a view for describing the topology of backplane specifications of a general ATCA.
The backplane defined by the current released ATCA is divided into three regions, Zone 1 to Zone 3, to manage power distribution, system management and data transmission and I/O interface.
The first region, Zone 1, performs the system management and the power distribution by transferring a power management signal and a low-speed data management signal to each slot. The Zone 1 is connected to all of slots 21 and 22 in series as shown in reference numeral 200 of FIG. 2.
The second region, Zone 2, performs the high-speed data exchange among boards. The Zone 2 includes a base interface 201 configured in a dual-star topology for providing additional paths to the entire backplane and for allowing various devices at a node slot 22 to exchange control information, a fabric interface 202 configured in a pull mesh topology for setting slots to be directly connected to one another to allow the slots to exchange packet data, a channel update interface 203 for connecting adjacent boards to allow independent communication therebetween in order to enable closely-coupled devices to exchange state information thereof, and a clock interface 204 for providing a redundant clock set to each board of a synchronized timing application.
The third region, Zone 3 (not shown), is used to route a signal. The connection structure for Zone 3 is not currently defined. The third region is left to the board vendor according to the application.
Such a data backplane structure is applied to a center switch slot 21 and side node slots 22. As shown in FIG. 2, the switch slot 21 occupies two center slots and is connected to each of the node slots 22 through the base interface 201. The fabric interface 202 has a structure identical to the switch slot 21 and the node slots 22 even in the base interface 201. Also, a first base interface (Shmc) of a duplicated switch slot 21 (switch) is defined to connect to an Ethernet port of a shelf manager 101 in all data backplane structure.
Although FIG. 2 shows a data backplane only, the shelf manager of ATCA system includes another backplane, a control backplane. The control backplane provides a slot for packaging the shelf manager 101 and the fan tray 106. Such a control backplane may further include an alarm board.
The control backplane may have various structures. Generally, the control backplane is used to connect the Ethernet port of the shelf manager 101 and the IPMB bus 104 to the data backplane.
Two Ethernet ports are provided to the shelf manger 101. The structure of the Ethernet port of the shelf manager 101 for duplication is classified into two structures.
In a first structure, a first Ethernet port (Eth0) is used to allow a manager access and a second Ethernet port (Eth1) is used for connecting duplicate shelf managers 101. That is, the second Ethernet port (Ethe1) is connected to a second Ethernet port of the other shelf manager through the control backplane. Therefore, the first Ethernet port (Eth0) is connected to a first base interface (Shmc) of a switch slot through a control backplane or is connected to a RJ-45 of a shelf manager. Therefore, a manager is allowed to select one of the two ports.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an Ethernet port connection between shelf managers and two switch boards in a switch slot (21) in a conventional ATCA system according to a first embodiment of the related art.
Referring to FIG. 3, reference numerals 31 and 32 denote a first switch and a second switch respectively, and reference numerals 101-1 and 101-2 denote respectively a first shelf manager and a second shelf manager having a duplicate structure.
As shown, each of the first shelf manager 101-1 and the second shelf manager 101-2 has a first Ethernet port Eth0 301 or 303 and a second Ethernet port Eth1 302 or 304. The second Ethernet ports 302 and 304 are connected to one another for connecting the first shelf manger 101-1 and the second shelf manager 101-2. The first Ethernet ports 301 and 303 are connected to the base interfaces (Shmc) 305 and 306 of the first and the second switch 31 and 32 at the switch slot 21.
Such a connection structure allows a manager to always access the active one of the first and the second shelf mangers 101-1 and 101-2 from an external network through the base interfaces (Shmc) 305 and 306 of the first and the second switch 31 and 32 when the base interfaces (Shmc) 305 and 306 of the first and the second switch 31 and 32 are operated normally. A solid line in FIG. 3 denotes that the connection is established.
However, the manager cannot access the first shelf manager 101-1 that is in an active state from an external network if the base interface (Shmc) 306 of the second switch 32 is not operated in a switch system having a duplicate switch structure or if a switch system has a single switch structure.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an Ethernet connection between shelf managers and two switch boards in a switch slot 21 according to the first embodiment when a manager cannot access the shelf manager.
Referring to FIG. 4, a duplicated structure of a first shelf manager 101-1 and a second shelf manager 101-2 have first and second Ethernet ports 401 to 404, respectively. The second Ethernet ports 402 and 404 connect the first and the second shelf managers 101-1 and 101-2, and the first Ethernet switches 401 and 403 are connected to the first and the second switches 41 and 42, respectively. Herein, it is assumed that the first switch 41 is in the active state and the second switch 42 in the waiting state. Under such an assumption, if the second shelf manager 101-2 becomes activated, the manager cannot access the second shelf manager 101-2, which is in the active state, through the first and the second switches 41 and 42 of the base interfaces 405 and 406 from the external network.
This is because the first switch 41 in the active state is connected to the first shelf manager 101-1 in the waiting state, and the second shelf manager 101-2 in the active state is connected to the second switch 42 in the waiting state. Therefore, the manager controls a system through the first switch 41 in the active state and such a control message cannot be connected to the second shelf manager 101-2 in the active state.
In FIG. 4 a solid line denotes that the connection is established, and a dotted line denotes that the connection is not established.
Such an operation is identically observed when the second switch 32 is not included.
There are many studies in progress to duplicate the Ethernet port of the shelf manager in order to overcome such a drawback. Therefore, a Shroff structure for ATCA system was introduced. In the Shroff structure, a stable duplication is embodied by connecting each Ethernet port of a shelf manager to an external hub or a switch without using a base interface (Shmc) of a switch. However, four Ethernet cables must be connected to the hub or the switch of the external network for duplicating a switch of base interface and for duplicating an Ethernet port of a shelf manager. Such a connection structure, which connects four Ethernet ports for one system, is not attractive to a communication system provider.
As another alternative, a method of connecting a redundant Ethernet port to the base interface of a switch was introduced. That is, a base interface of a switch and Ethernet ports Eth0 and Eth1 of a shelf manager having a duplicated structure are connected through a backplane.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an Ethernet port connection between shelf managers and two switches in an ATCA system according to a second embodiment of the related art.
An Intel ATCA system has the Ethernet port connection structure shown in FIG. 5. Differently from the Ethernet port connections shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the first shelf manager 101-1 and the second shelf manager 101-2 are not connected together.
That is, Ethernet ports Eth0 and Eth1 of first and second shelf managers 101-1 and 101-2 having a duplicate structure are connected to one another using base interfaces 505 and 506 of a first switch 51 and a second switch 52, which are dedicated for a shelf manager.
Therefore, the first Ethernet ports 501 and 504 of the shelf managers 101-1 and 101-2 are connected to the shelf manager dedicated base interfaces 505 and 506 of the first and the second switch 51 and 52, and the second Ethernet ports 502 and 503 are connected to the redundant base interfaces 509 and 510 of the first and the second switches 51 and 52. Accordingly, the external manager can access the first shelf manger 101-1 in the active state although one of the first and the second switch 51 and 52 is in the waiting state and is not included.
In FIG. 5, a solid line denotes that the connection is established, and a dotted line denotes that the connection is not established. Therefore, the first switch 51 and the second switch 52 are connected to the active one of the first shelf manager 101-1 and the second shelf manager 101-2 having the duplicate structure in any case.
However, the connection structure shown in FIG. 5 requires Ethernet functions for accessing of a manager and Ethernet functions for duplicating the shelf managers according to a system state. Also, the connection structure of FIG. 5 requires a data back plane having a unique structure which is different from the others. Furthermore, a switch board of a switch slot must have a redundant base interface port for the Ethernet port of the shelf manager.